Gradually ease stole through me, and I was finally able to stop shaking and get control of the racking sobs. But I made no move to pull away. I wasn’t ready to face Ryan.

“You were overtaken,” the demon murmured. “You must not feel shame for what happened.”

But it was what I wanted, I thought miserably. I wasn’t being controlled.

“Something affected you,” she continued. “You know in your essence that you would never have acted thus on your own volition.”

She had a point there. Even if I did want Ryan to…I cringed. I couldn’t even think it without flushing in embarrassment at my behavior. Which, of course, helped prove Eilahn’s point. I wasn’t quite the type to jump on him, no matter how much I might secretly lust after him. And especially now that I knew how much more could be at stake. An unpleasant chill snaked through me. I am sworn to protect you. That’s what Eilahn had said right before I lost consciousness. Was she protecting me from Ryan? From Rhyzkahl? Would she have done the same if I’d made a pass at, say, Tracy Gordon?

I lifted my head unsteadily. She slid smoothly aside and shifted so that I was sitting properly again, though she remained beside me. I swiped at my eyes. Eilahn held out a roll of toilet paper.

“You have nothing else that would serve for nose-blowing,” she stated so matter-of-factly that I managed something that almost resembled a smile. I made use of the toilet paper, not caring that my nose-blowing was probably fairly disgusting. I’d already shamed myself enough. What was a little grossness at this point?

“What happened?” I heard Ryan say, anxiety deeply coloring his voice. I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him, though I was aware that he was standing just beyond the open door. Eilahn had ordered him outside, and he was apparently abiding by her command.

“I don’t know,” I replied, eyes on my hands. “Ryan…I’m so sorry. I—” My voice caught, and I couldn’t go on. I’d pretty much screwed up any chance of us remaining friends. A tiny part of me wondered if maybe that would be for the best, for my own safety, but the rest of me ached at the thought. I’d been alone for so much of my life that the thought of losing any of my newfound friends was agonizing.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Kara,” he said, anger in his voice. “Knock it off. Something happened to you that caused you to go temporarily nuts. Don’t you fucking dare apologize.”

I lifted my head to glare at him before I could remember that I was too ashamed for that sort of thing. He caught my gaze. “I guess that new cologne of mine that’s guaranteed to drive women wild worked a little too well,” he said with a reassuring smile that managed to ease a tiny bit of the horrible fear lingering inside me still.

I shook my head. “Nope. I think your geek show drove me over the edge.”

He laughed, relief shining in his eyes, and I realized that he was just as afraid as I was that this would permanently mar our friendship. Like there isn’t enough going on already to affect that, I thought. It’s a fucking miracle we can still even be in the same room. And how would Rhyzkahl react if I ever did sleep with Ryan? Rhyzkahl had never batted an eyelash at the two of us being friends, and he’d never seemed the least bit possessive. But even if they aren’t enemies there’s definitely some sort of conflict going on between those two. The last thing I want is to be caught in the middle.

I snorted to myself. Who the fuck was I kidding? I was already hip-deep in the middle of whatever the hell it was. Best I could hope for at this point was to avoid being collateral damage.

I took a deep breath. “I’m inside the wards,” I pointed out. “Could it have been some sort of attack—like the summoning attempts—that managed to get through?”

Eilahn’s brows drew together in a frown. “I do not see how such would be possible. The wards I have placed on this house are as strong as I can possibly make them. Even if something were to get through, I would have felt it.”

“But you knew something was wrong,” Ryan stated.

Her gaze moved to him. “I felt your shock,” she told him. She fell silent but her eyes remained on him. Unspoken—but as loud as if it had been shouted—was the assertion that if she hadn’t felt that shock, or if she’d considered Ryan implicit in any way, she’d have attacked him first instead of simply pulling me away.

Ryan broke the gaze first, scrubbing a hand over his head. My hand seemed to tingle with the memory of running my fingers through his hair. Hey, at least I’d managed to do that. He had nice hair. Almost worth the total humiliation of the whole thing.

“Are you, um, better now?” he asked me.

“I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to grab you and make you fuck me,” I said, struggling to be cheeky. Hell, maybe being deliberately blunt would help desensitize the whole situation.

I could see that he was resisting making a joke. Not the right time, I could see clearly in his expression. “I guess you don’t want to watch the rest of the show?”

“Not a chance,” I replied, managing a smile. “At least not right now,” I added. I gave a shrug. “It was actually…sort of cool.”

His mouth twitched. “Only sort of?”

“Don’t push your luck, nerd boy,” I warned.

He smiled, though there was still tension in his eyes. “Fair enough. I’d better be going then. I get the feeling Eilahn wants to talk to you in private.” His eyes met mine again. “I’m glad you’re all right. And don’t worry. Okay?”

I nodded. “Sure. Okay.”

He closed the door, and I soon heard the crunch of gravel as his car headed down the driveway. I let out a ragged sigh and shoved both hands through my hair. “Fuuuuuuuuuucck. Eilahn. I…wanted him. I didn’t care about any of the reasons why it was a mistake.”

She stood, peered through the window briefly as if to assure herself that he was really gone, then turned back to me, worry on her face for the first time. “I did not wish to say anything while he was here since I knew it could be awkward, but it does seem to me that whatever affected you did so by removing your natural inhibitions and grossly enhancing your immediate desires.”

Grimacing, I rubbed at my temples. There was a thought just out of reach but a slight headache was making it difficult to concentrate on anything. “I’m glad you were here,” I said, then looked up. “I really mean that. Whether I want to have hot sex with Ryan or not”—I ignored the slight lifting of her eyebrow—“that’s not how I would ever want the, uh, first time to be.”

“Understandable,” the demon replied. “I am pleased I was in a position to help.”

My cell phone rang. My headache gave a throbbing jab as I stood to retrieve my bag, then settled back into a dull ache. I fumbled my phone from the outer pocket.

“Kara, you need to come over to my house,” my aunt said as soon as I answered. Alarm spiked through me at the worry in her voice.

“What’s going on?” I demanded. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “Someone died in my front yard. Police and ambulance are already here,” she went on before I could say anything. “But you need to get over here.”

My aunt wasn’t the sort who needed me to hold her hand in a stressful situation. “I’m on my way, but can you tell me why?”

I heard her sigh. “Because I think he was trying to get into the house,” she said.

That wasn’t a good thing. My aunt’s house was warded damn near as heavily as mine, mostly to guard the portal in her library.

“But there’s more,” she continued. “It’s someone you know.”

Two is a coincidence. Three is a pattern. My chest felt tight. “Who?”

“Your ex-boyfriend,” she said.

A spasm shot through me. Roman? No…please. I’d just seen him yesterday. I didn’t have any reason to dislike him. We’d simply been a bad fit, and the breakup had been as amicable as such things could be.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts I almost missed what she said. “Wait, what? Which ex-boyfriend?”

“Thomas,” she repeated. “Thomas the Turd.”

Chapter 12

Tessa had made it clear from the first time she’d met my second boyfriend, Thomas Chartres, that she didn’t care for him one tiny whit. Unfortunately, it had taken me almost two months to see what she’d seen—that he was a charming asshole, manipulative and controlling, and, I later learned, an abusive one as well. He never reached the point of physical violence with me, though, mostly because I discovered he was also a cheating jerk, and I told him to get lost. However, the breakup had been an ugly one—he slashed the tires on my car, stole one of my credit cards, and spread vicious and ugly rumors about me in an attempt to get me fired from the PD. Luckily I had a fairly solid reputation as a quiet homebody who kept to herself, so nobody—or at least, nobody who mattered—believed his stories wherein I supposedly had wild public sexcapades with strange men in exchange for drugs. Eventually, I had to resort to a restraining order. And when he broke into my car and stole one of my guns, I took a great and terrible pleasure in obtaining the surveillance video that clearly showed him doing so, and I made sure that he was arrested for it. Since the theft of the gun automatically made it an aggravated burglary—a felony—he went to jail, and the only lasting injury I sustained was the shredding of my self-esteem.

So, can I blame him for the fact that I now have a demonic lord as a fuckbuddy? I thought with a sour smile as I raced to my aunt’s house.

I made it there in just over fifteen minutes, thanks to reckless disregard for speed limits, and not-so-judicious use of lights and siren to get through intersections and around cars. I slowed as I turned onto Tessa’s street. There were several emergency vehicles clustered in the vicinity of her house, and a number of neighbors milled about in their front yards in an effort to see what was marring the normal calm of their neighborhood.